bambooforest wrote:Why can't an organization randomly take tea samples from different tea purveyors and test it for pesticide levels?

It costs money and the question is who pays for it.

I would pay for it. Think about it... if every tea drinker spent a few dollars a year, such an organization could easily operate I would think. It would merely require testing random teas from various vendors. You should KNOW what's in your tea, you know?

It's not that I have a problem with pesticides. I have a problem when the pesticide residues exceed international standards of what's considered safe. That's just not acceptable, is it?

bambooforest wrote:Why can't an organization randomly take tea samples from different tea purveyors and test it for pesticide levels?

It costs money and the question is who pays for it.

I would pay for it. Think about it... if every tea drinker spent a few dollars a year, such an organization could easily operate I would think. It would merely require testing random teas from various vendors. You should KNOW what's in your tea, you know?

It's not that I have a problem with pesticides. I have a problem when the pesticide residues exceed international standards of what's considered safe. That's just not acceptable, is it?

While I do not have stats on number of tea drinkers vs number of teas available from the number of vendors out there. Also to what level of detail will you go? Are you going to test each tea from every vendor in the world? Every vendor selling online? Every vendor selling online with English as an available language on their site?

Then who is going to host the information on the test results for all of these teas? What measures will be taken to fact check the results, and ensure no samples get swapped, mislabeled or check that the data was recorded correctly? Also will you recheck the teas after each new harvest?

Granted while there is a huge abundance of tea drinkers in the world, there also is a huge abundance of available tea products out there, and should you even begin testing all those teas, unless you are spending big money to run a giant set of labs, when you are considering teas on a World Wide scale, it would likely take well into the fall to test all the batches of tea harvested in the spring, and by that time you are already behind on summer and fall harvests.

I am not saying its impossible, but I hardly think a few dollars from tea drinkers who wish to donate, will create that big of a dent in the amount of testing that would be needed.